{"id":5619,"date":"2016-10-19T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T17:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/live-aclu-wp.pantheonsite.io\/constitution-leaves-no-room-secret-law\/"},"modified":"2023-02-27T17:18:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T22:18:14","slug":"constitution-leaves-no-room-secret-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/national-security\/constitution-leaves-no-room-secret-law","title":{"rendered":"The Constitution Leaves No Room for Secret Law"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-5619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":{"header_layout":"standard","color_scheme":false,"header_image":5620,"mobile_header_image":null,"description":"","authors":[1411,1880],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"
There are still many questions<\/a> to be answered about Yahoo\u2019s secret scanning of all of its customers\u2019 incoming emails under a mysterious government order.<\/p>\n Anonymous officials have revealed<\/a> that the government used an individualized court order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). But that sweeping demand and the legal interpretations it was based on remain secret \u2014 and they are only one small part of a much larger collection of hidden rulings on all sorts of government surveillance activities that affect the privacy rights of Americans.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why today, the ACLU \u2014 with the help of Yale Law School\u2019s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic \u2014 filed a motion<\/a> with the FISC asking the court to release all of its opinions containing \u201cnovel or significant interpretations\u201d of law issued between 9\/11 and the passage of the USA Freedom Act in June 2015.<\/p>\n The USA Freedom Act ended the NSA\u2019s mass phone records collection program, and it also required the government to make significant FISC opinions public. Unfortunately, the government maintains that its obligation to release such opinions does not apply to secret court rulings that predate the USA Freedom Act. More broadly, it has refused to recognize the public\u2019s First Amendment right to examine significant FISC opinions interpreting our surveillance laws.<\/p>\n These court rulings are essential for the public to understand how federal laws are being construed and implemented. They also show how constitutional protections for personal privacy and expressive activities are being enforced by the courts. In other words, access to these opinions is necessary for the public to properly oversee their government.<\/p>\n Based on documents and media reports released in the past few years following the revelations by Edward Snowden, it appears that in addition to authorizing bulk searches of Yahoo emails, the FISC\u2019s secret rulings address a range of novel surveillance activities, including:<\/p>\n (The ACLU has compiled a longer list<\/a> of undisclosed FISC opinions, which is included with today\u2019s motion.)<\/p>\n This is not the first time we have sought important legal opinions in the FISC. We\u2019ve been fighting<\/a> for years to gain access to a similar but smaller set of rulings, and we previously won disclosure of a FISC opinion<\/a> addressing the First Amendment and spying under Section 215 of the Patriot Act.<\/p>\n We are seeking these opinions now because \u2014 as the new Yahoo revelations underscore \u2014 it simply isn\u2019t possible to understand the government\u2019s claimed authority to conduct surveillance without these judicial rulings. Congress recognized the importance of transparency in the USA Freedom Act when it required that FISC opinions be made public, but the government has refused to accept that the need for transparency extends to the many foundational FISC opinions that predate the law and remain hidden.<\/p>\n It is now time for the FISC to make clear that the Constitution leaves no room for secret law \u2014 even in a court that often operates in the shadows.<\/p>\n"}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":148399,"issues":[46591,46643,46723,46591,46591],"related_content_cases":[55389,95577,103990],"related_content_documents":null,"related_content_publications":null,"related_affiliates":null,"content_layout":"","theme":"light","drupal_nid":"58951"},"yoast_head":"\n\n